Welcome ambulances but…

The government’s fulfilment of an electoral promise to procure ambulances for all constituencies is indeed welcome news.

This is notwithstanding the backlash it has faced owing to its inability to distribute the ambulances in a timely fashion.

This also goes to underscore the importance the citizenry attach to the availability of ambulances and the key role they are expected to play in the total health delivery system.

Day in day out, the media is awash with stories of citizens, especially pregnant women, having their lives cut short as a result of the lack of ambulances to transport them to the appropriate health facilities in good time.

In fact, in the less privileged areas of the country, such incidents have even ceased to be considered as news due to their frequency.

Be that as it may, perhaps this is the right time to analyse this whole ambulance issue if we are to derive the maximum benefits from such a human-centred move by the government.

This is so because bringing these ambulances into the country cannot be described as a novelty, since successive governments have brought in ambulances even if not in such quantities.

The reality, however, is that we have not felt the impact and benefits of such imports in the past and that is why we must resolve to do things differently, if we aim to achieve different results.

First and foremost, we need to remind ourselves of what an ambulance is.

It is a vehicle equipped for taking sick or injured people to and from a hospital, especially in emergencies.

The critical requirement is that the ambulances must be fitted with the appropriate gadgets and manned by qualified paramedics.

The idea is that the patient will be provided with first aid and stabilised on the way to the health facility because in emergencies, time is of the essence.

Even though it is a good start, I wonder what one ambulance in a whole constituency can achieve? How about the several constituencies whose roads are not passable? Should it have been fixing of the roads first?

There is also this general attitude of drivers which must be worked on. Most often when they are needed, the ambulance may be parked alright but there will be excuses like,” the driver has gone to eat”, or “is attending to the call of nature”.

Demands such as driver motivation or fuel for the ambulance must be things of the past.

Such attitudes would defeat the purpose for which the ambulances have been acquired.

Closely related to these are unprofessional attitudes such as taking “madam” to the market or dropping children at school.

We have seen it where fire service trucks have sent water to a “big man’s site”, there is an emergency and then no water followed by the usual embarrassment.

People must be educated to have confidence in the ambulance system and be conversant with the procedures to call for one in an emergency situation.

To have ambulances with the average person not knowing how to call for one renders the whole exercise useless.

This encourages people to transport accident victims via any available means.

Yet according to medical experts, how a patient is conveyed to hospital determines the prognosis sometimes.

Some people in our emergency units must be trained to understand that it is not only the oozing of blood which indicates an emergency.

For example, a person who has suffered a heart attack may not show physical injuries but would be in grim danger. In our situation where oozing of blood signifies emergency, lives may be lost.

How ready will hospital staff be to receive the patient? If they are now going to look for a bed or a doctor or take forever to prepare a folder, then the good work done by the ambulance team will come to naught!

Ambulances are no hearses to be carrying dead bodies.

Bodies must be accorded the necessary respect, but ambulances have a critical role to play. The two are not interchangeable.

Once you use an ambulance for hearse duties, it may be unavailable at the time it is needed.

Much as the government must be commended for such a bold initiative, the mere procurement of the ambulances will not solve our problems unless the necessary measures are put in place to ensure their efficient operation.

We have seen grandeur projects fizzle out to become useless projects in our sixty-something-year history and we can only pray the ambulance project does not become one of such.

Writer’s E-mail: doreen.hammond@graphic.com.gh/aamakai@rocketmail.com